Monday, 9 July 2012

TTT Macaroon cake with raspberries

A great gluten free cake recipe is a wonderful thing in this day and age. The flourless chocolate and the flourless orange are classics. The lovely Hannah at Wayfaring Chocolate recently posted an Almond and Coconut Cake with Raspberries to add to this list. It was only a matter of time before I tried it. I made it for a birthday dinner on the weekend and found it as delicious as it was easy.

My kitchen cupboards yielded some items of interest for the cake. I use some neglected pistachios from the back of the pantry, as well as almonds. My tin was slightly smaller than the recipe called for so I put some of the batter into a small springform tin I stumbled across. Best of all was the help from my wee kitchen assistant, Sylvia (and no, she doesn't live in a cupboard).

I left my cake in the oven until I was sure it felt cooked in the middle, despite it getting rather brown on the outside. As you can see from the below photo, its underbelly was still rather moist in the middle. I blame my oven which cooks rather slowly. Fortunately such flourless cakes can cope with some squidginess in the middle.

Once cooled, the large cake looked effortlessly pretty and sliced up nicely. However Sylvia and I were too impatient to wait for the small cake to cool. This was our tester cake to eat warm out of the oven. It was a rich, nutty, crumbly, berry-studded mess on the plate. I had high hopes for this cake and it didn't let me down.

It was like a big warm macaroon. Only better. I love anything with dessicated coconut but macaroons are special because I love them
with a Proustian nostalgia. Hence I renamed it a Macaroon Cake. After all, once I added pistachios, it felt wrong to call it an almond and coconut cake.

The cake accompanied me to a birthday dinner for my nephew Cooper. It is the second birthday dinner we have had at my brother's place recently. The above photo is of my niece Ashton's birthday spread. I loved the cute shapes in the fairy bread that you can see at the front. There is also lemon slice, grubs and rocky road. Delicious.

Even more impressive is my sister-in-law, Erica's, cake decorating. At the back of the above photos you can see the owl cake in slices. Below is Cooper's alien cake. Aren't the lollypop antennae cute? Sylvia was intent on having a "pom-pom" off the tummy. I must try to make Erica's mum's chocolate caramel tarts (with butternut snap bases) that went down a treat.

It wasn't all sweet food. I have been using these
occasions to try out some sausage roll recipes that I will post about
after some further experiments. As for the cake, I think there might be a few tweaks when I next bake it. I did consider some orange zest, slices of peach or other berries but most of all I want to try a chocolate version.

Preheat oven to 180 C. Grease and line a 24cm round cake tin. (I used a 22cm springform tin and a 10cm springform tin).

Mix the ground nuts, sugar and coconut in a mixing bowl. In a large jug or small mixing bowl, melt nuttalex gently in the microwave (which means you can get away without cooling it as you would need to do if melting on the stovetop). Whisk in the eggs one at a time with a fork. (Be quick if you are paranoid as me about chunks of cooked egg in the cake, even if the butter is so cool it couldn't cook the egg.) Add vanilla and whisk to mix. Pour butter mixture into nut mixture and gently mix until combined. You will have quite a thin batter.

Pour batter into prepared cake tin(s). Dot with raspberries. Bake at 180 C for about 50-55 minutes (or 70 minutes if your oven is slow like mine). The cake will be golden brown and feel cooked in the centre, though even then I found mine quite soft when I served (but that was fine). Serve warm or at room temperature.

Thanks Rachel - I had wondered how easy it would be to veganise this - I would try a half version so you have less eggs to replace - my favourite egg replacer lately is chia seeds which I think would work well with nuts but I am unsure how firm it would be - would some baking powder and/or cornflour also help the texture to rise and set????

I am starting to worry about the time between bookmarking a recipe and actually making it - I have bookmarked this cake but think it could be many months before it appears! You are delightfully organised and I like the sound of your tweaks, especially the pistachios. Sounds like a great result and a great party.

Thanks Kari - I highly recommend bookmarking your recipes somewhere like delicious that allows you to tag your bookmarks - it has helped me to go back to recipes I would otherwise forget. As for organised, I was actually lucky to have to stay at home to look after sylvia who was not well which is the only reason I had the time to make all the food I did

Thanks Hannah - somehow I didn't think you would try my suggestions of orange zest or even chocolate :-) I thought pistachios were a good one to use if you can't eat almonds or just don't have any around (and happen to have pistachios that really should be used) I'd love to try walnuts but I think they might be too robust for the cake

The ingredients in this do make it seem like a giant macaroon--and I bet the pistachios were lovely in it. Sounds like everyone had fun at the parties, too! (PS forgot to say--like the new background! Has it been that long since I've commented??? Aye!).

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Recipes and reflections in which our vegetarian heroine dreams of being tall and graceful as a giraffe; being a goddess in the kitchen; and being gladdened by green gadgets, green food and green politics because green is the colour of hope. See About Me for more info.